The Forbidden Church by Silviu Sana

Author:Silviu Sana [Sana, Silviu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9782140154966
Google: VaH9DwAAQBAJ
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Publisher: Harmattan Hongrie
Published: 2020-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

Bishop under surveillance

Iuliu Hirtea in the records of the Securitate (1947-1978)393

The communist institution which interacted directly with the Greek-Catholic resistance was the Securitate. This is the institution that for more than 40 years, supervised, investigated, arrested and even used violence against members of the Greek Catholic Church, just because they have remained faithful to the Catholic faith and have not passed to Orthodoxy. Since its foundation, in August 1948, the Securitate was a synthesis of the efforts of the Romanian Communist Party made between 1945 to 1948, to build a powerful surveillance and repression apparatus, specially designed to impose the new regime394 by force, terror and repression. The diversion and subordination of the state’s institutions which had information and repressive functions (Police, Gendarmerie, Special Intelligence Service) had as main objective the political struggle with traditional parties and with any other form of anti-communist power structure, their taking-over was made in the first months of the year 1945395.

The Securitate will receive from the Communist Party free hand to achieve its objectives, the traditional means used by the secret services (network information, interception of mail, stakeout, searches, detentions and arrests, informative investigations) being filled in with activities marked by unprecedented violence in the practice of the Romanian secret services, a thing that was produced also due to the fact that during the years 1947-1967, the security agencies and officers had, mostly, a low cultural and professional level396.

Marked in the Securitate’s files and identified as “132” or “the Greek Catholic resistance problem”, the repressive institution of the communist government began to monitor the Greek Catholic Church, long before its dissolution which took place through the decree 358 from December 1, 1948397. This fact was determined, initially, by the political option, and then, by the religious choice, that to refuse the transition to Orthodoxy. The political option of its clerical and intellectual elite was linked to historical parties (National Peasant Party and National Liberal Party), the Communist government looked with suspicion at the Greek Catholic Church, accused of “animosity” attitude towards “The Bloc of Democratic Parties” (BPD), its clergy and believers have thus entered the attention of the Securitate’s officers398. On the other hand, regarding the religious option, the failure of religious “unification” with the Orthodox Church, from October 1948, put the Securitate on guard, the Greek-Catholic priests and believers being falsely accused and convicted on political grounds399. This way, intentionally, they made the immixture between the two identities: the religious one and the political one. For the communists being “Greek-Catholic” was equated with being “liberal” or “peasant” even if you were or you were not a member of any political party from the anti-communist opposition. Thus, they were easily identified as “kulaks”, “foreign intelligence agents” or “reactionary priests”400.

To achieve its objectives, the Securitate was fully supported by “the masses competition”401, creating in a very short time a very well informative network. To create the “secret agency” or in other words, the network of informants, the Securitate was recruiting persons from all state institutions,

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